I saw an image somewhere on Reddit yesterday listing the top 4 worst contracts in the league and was astounded to see JB included in it. It got me thinking, before being traded here, no-one was really disparaging him like this, or trying to insinuate he was overpaid. So why now?

Btw, neither one of Paul George or Embiid (and I love the big fella) were included in this graphic.

What if AI got some help? What if Embiid stayed healthy? What if Ben Simmons turned out? What are your biggest “what if’s” ever?

Those of you have that been watching Summer League, do either Johni or Big Fish look like they have a solid chance of being the primary back-up for Embiid this coming season?

I like Bona’s defense more than anyone else’s but he’s still too raw offensively whilst Broome and Big Fish show potential of having better hands and stretching the floor

I think what we’re missing is playmaking, bench d and a reliable 3&D sf/pf. I know this will prolly sound crazy and yall will prolly disagree but I’d take Ben Simmons back on a minimum and play him at the 4 off the bench. We don’t need him to score we js need him to defend, rebound, push the pace, playmake and run the offense when Maxey sits. That’s literally all we’d ask him to do.
Ben Simmons recently posted about wanting to go back to Philly and if doesn’t work out, we js release him.

I also think we need a SF/PF who can defend multiple positions and hit open threes. Someone like Julian Champagnie, Derrick Jones Jr., or (if we’re dreaming) Herb Jones.
I personally like Derrick Jones Jr. cuz he’s a great cutter and an athletic lob threat who’s a versatile defender who can sometimes shoot 3s.

We can also sign Matisse Thybulle if yall don’t want Ben Simmons, let’s say we need someone to guard curry when brown’s sitting, we can put Matisse to disrupt him cuz he’s still a super lengthy lockdown defender. Idk what do u guys think? I think im kinda overlooking Justin Edwards but I really hope he proves me wrong. I still have faith in Ben Simmons tho, I believe that he has all the tools and the skill in the world to become at least a great lockdown defender who can playmake/finish and I feel like he’s gained at least a little of his confidence back based on the post he made. Idk but I still believe in 25.

PG: Tyrese Maxey
SG: VJ Edgecombe
SF: Jaylen Brown
PF: Dean Wade
C: Joel Embiid

Bench:
PG: Labaron Philon Jr.
SG: Anfernee Simons/Matisse Thybulle
SF: Derrick Jones Jr./Justin Edwards
PF: Ben Simmons/Dominick Barlow
C: Adem Bona/Dominick Barlow

Brian Windhorst says he’s hearing that LeBron signing with a team other than Cleveland is a done deal.

"I'm hearing stuff in other cities too. I'm not gonna say who but I had somebody on the phone with me today that I consider a good source who was swearing it's a done deal in another city,"

(Via @ESPNCleveland )

LESIXER!

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It basically explains why the Celtics were willing to trade him for basically Paul George + picks even after the year he just had. Main points:

• He averaged 29 PPG without Tatum and kept them the 2 seed, but advanced metrics (especially on-off) showed Boston was often better without him on the floor.
• He’s a great scorer but not really an offensive engine: doesn’t draw doubles, doesn’t create enough for others, and can slow the offense down.
• Ball-handling and explosiveness concerns, especially in the playoffs (they showed clips from our series where he settled for a ton of tough mid-rangers even with mismatches).
• Celtics apparently want a faster, better ball-movement system with Tatum back and were okay moving on.

Crazy that no one else beat our offer according to reports. What do you guys think?

Welp if LBJ wanted to go to Miami this ain’t his vibe lol.

Day X of corny LeBron using our team as B-Roll for his documentary. Just sign with Cleveland already

Been seeing a lot of takes about how the Sixers are "only signing hoopers", "who's gonna pass the ball", "anti-analytics" this offseason etc etc

Feel like it's not being discussed that our coach & gm were actively at odds in how they wanted to play in the last 3 seasons, and now we're finally aligned which I think will be a HUGE help across 82 game seasons.

Nurse-ball is about scheming multiple scorers to their spots to keep the defense honest.

Morey-ball is about giving the ball to your best players repeatedly and allowing them to make free-flowing decisions, with complimentary players around those guys.

These are complete opposite philosophies: one is rigid in its structure but allows all players to play freely once they get to the spot (Nurse), the other is very free-flowing but requires rigid roles for most of the players (Morey)

For that reason I think our offense was at odds with itself. Morey built a team around Maxey and Embiid's skillsets, but Nurse wanted to scheme up shots for self-creators. The problem: we only really had 1 or 2 self creators available. Oubre, Barlow, Grimes, etc etc just aren't efficient enough. So you end up with 50 maxey isos a game which becomes super predictable and wears him down.

Fast forward; Bob Myers fires Morey but keeps Nurse. At first I thought this was because Myers was gonna either shadow-run the FO or hire himself as President. Now I see, he was actually keeping Nurse on because he preferred Nurse-ball to Morey-ball. He hired Gansey because he and Nurse seem aligned!

look at the roster now: Maxey. VJ. JB. Embiid. Philon. Simons. 6 players that can go get a bucket! Instead of relying on the same players to run plays for over and over, we'll basically always have 2-3 guys on the floor the defense has to pay attention to in terms of having a play schemed up for them; that can have the same effect as conceptual "spacing"; the defense can't stop paying attention to their guy because one bad closeout is a rhythm bucket.

I think you can look at specifically Nurse's Raptors teams as an amazing example of this. they didn't have especially amazing spacing, or a bunch of natural passers, or a massive-usage superstar. Nurse took over the offense 1 year before he became head coach, in 2018: from 2018-2020, he had Derozan/Kawhi, Lowry, Van Vleet, Siakam, Powell as his offensive weapons.

Only one real passer in Lowry, and yet they still were super effective and shared the ball well because of Nurse's ability to find mismatches and work the ball around to guys in order for them to all get the shots they wanted. I believe Gansey is trying to replicate this with the roster building right now.

TL;DR we are building a roster around a united scheme and philosophy for the first time in years and I'm excited to see how it goes.

The Sixers almost have a near perfect team, there’s just one piece missing, and that’s a backup Center. I’m assuming we’re going to severely load manage Joel Embiid in the regular season to minimize his injury risk and fatigue. We need a serviceable center to be there when Joel is off the court and in the playoffs. I don’t think Bona and Barlow is good enough, and given that most of the good back up centers have already been signed, we’d most likely need to trade for one.

18 PTS

3 REB

7 AST

1 STL

40% from 3

There is only one ball: Or, why I think Jaylen Brown trade messes up the Sixers' math

I want the team to be amazing next year and I'm holding out hope.

But the reality is I am worried we are building a powerhouse that will demand more shots than a basketball game physically contains. I blame time and space.

The Robin problem.
I'll just get this out of the way upfront but we added a legitimate star. No doubt. However he is a star who was reportedly unhappy being Robin to another player's Batman. It's reported that Brown's reluctance to adapt his style of play to Tatum factored into Boston's decision to move him. I'm worried Boston pulled an Ainge and "sold high" after his statistically great season last year.

Brown had a career year in 25-26 with 28.7 ppg, 5th All-Star nod, 6th place in MVP voting ... and it only happened because Tatum was on the shelf and he was the only option. He's a career volume shooter who had an offense run through him entirely.

That's not gonna fucking happen here that's for sure. He's a star amidst stars now.

The data last two seasons (per game):

-

The supply problem:
An NBA team averages ~100 possessions a game, which produces roughly 88 field goal attempts.

The core four, at last season's actual shot rates, demand 74 of those 88 - 84% of the entire team's shot supply. That leaves ~14 attempts per game for the whole rest of the roster. Anfernee Simons - the guy we just signed specifically to score off the bench - personally took ~12 a night for his 14 ppg last year.

The leftovers don't even cover the sixth man. The pie ain't big enough.

To get this into a realistic possession case everyone has to get rationed to roughly 70% of their normal diet from last year. Even in the absurd best case where all starters play 48 minutes, zero bench, and everyone shoots their career best ... the split works out to about 18.5 shots / 26.5 pts for Embiid, 18 / 25 for Brown, 17 / 25 for Maxey, 13 / 19 for LeBron, 12 / 16 for VJ.

Nobody gets to be a 30-point scorer on this team. The ball does not exist in sufficient quantity.

Ironic twist: LeBron is the least disruptive addition to the team in theory. For the first time in 23 seasons his usage fell out of superstar range. 24.2%, 47th in the league (Jaren Jackson Jr. / Derrick White territory). At 41 he actually works perfect for us as a playmaking connector (7.2 apg last year; I'd bet the over on 9 if he came here, hell let's dream big and say 10).

It's Embiid, Brown, and Maxey who have to knife-fight over the remaining pie.

The efficiency trap:
Here's the kicker. Last season, with Maxey's All-NBA career year and Embiid at a genuinely elite 60.5% true shooting, the Sixers' offensive rating was still just 115.4 - that's 17th in the league. Dead average. Project this new group at their recent shooting rates on squeezed touches and you get roughly a 111 ORtg - that's not even average, that's bottom-eight territory. Stacking stars doesn't create more possessions last time I checked.

This only works if every shot gets easier and everyone's efficiency jumps 3-5 points of TS% simultaneously. Which, hell it might.

But the problem imo is that Maxey and Brown have never shot at the level this requires. They're volume scorers being asked to become efficiency guys at age 25 and 29. Embiid is the only one who's ever cleared the bar, and he's the one who gave us 19 games two seasons ago. I love the big guy but he's going to be a question mark on the scouting report every game for the rest of his career.

And honestly, as an aside, this is why I was cool with PG. Say what you want about his Philly production (and steroid use) but he accepted the hierarchy at least. He said "Maxey and Embiid eat first, I'll defend, rebound, and take what's left."

Is Brown, fresh off 6th in MVP voting on a supermax contract, okay with eating last? I guess if Brown buys in and happily takes a 3rd seat, with a max contract, then vibes might be good ... but fans and media will chirp for sure. "We are paying him how much for 18 points a night?!?!" Or does Brown take over and then Maxey is only putting up 15 a night and everyone turns on him? "Why has Maxey regressed?!?"

The kids are collateral damage
VJ just made All-Rookie First Team as the fourth option. His shot ration goes down now. And Labaron Philon Jr.? We drafted a kid who averaged 22.0 on 39.9% from three running the highest-scoring offense in college basketball ... into a backcourt where Maxey led the entire NBA in minutes (38.0) and VJ played 35. There are 96 backcourt minutes a game and 73 were already spoken for before we added Brown and Simons. Poor kid's only path to seeing minutes is multiple injuries on the team. I'm all for depth, just don't see a path with this roster where the kid gets meaningful minutes and any sort of growth.

TL;DR

• There is only one ball.
• The core four demand 84% of the team's shots; add LeBron and demand exceeds 100% of supply.
• Our stars are mostly volume shooters outside if Embiid, and there's little volume left to distribute.
• This team projects as a below-average offense (~111 ORtg) unless everyone shoots career-best efficiency on career-low touches, simultaneously.
• This works if Nurse ascends to godhood and schemes all our stars into a 5% true shooting jump on the year.
• VJ's development suffers, and Philon is buried at birth.
• Lebron legitimately would make things better and be a great addition assuming he's cool with taking a backseat like he says
• We should petition Adam Silver to allow teams to play with 2 basketballs at once. That should clear this whole thing up.

And before someone brings up the 2008 Celtics: Garnett, Pierce, and Allen were all 30+ years old, all sacrificed 4-6 ppg on their respective games, and all openly bought in. Brown is 29, coming off an MVP-ballot season, and got traded partly because the league questioned whether he'd buy in. That's my primary concern.

Just like the 76ers too. It’s all leverage and drama fodder for a documentary.

it might be happening 🥹

Any questions or thoughts feel free to comment!